Balancing daily life as a new immigrant to Israel with anticipating the geula.

Sunday, March 26, 2017

They Ruined the Kotel for Me

Photo credit: attractions-in-israel.com

Like so many other people, visiting the Kotel was an
important part of my first-ever trip to Israel. To be honest, I pushed off
going until the end of the trip. The Kotel! I understood it had potent,
concentrated spiritual power. And I was a little afraid of it.

When I finally built up the courage to experience it for the first time, my
husband and I walked to the Kotel Plaza. He went to the left and I went to the
right. We agreed to meet back at a certain point in 20 minutes.

Once under the spell of the Kotel, I started weeping. I cried for so long that
I was still crying when it was time to meet my husband in the plaza area.
Unable to explain why I was crying, we went into the Rova and sat at a
restaurant. And I was still crying.

I couldn’t understand what had come over me. And I certainly
had no words to explain it to him.

You would think that such a powerful emotional experience
would knit me to the Kotel forever.

But you’d be wrong.

Let me state for the record that I am an Orthodox woman, married to a rabbi,
now living in Israel. The Kotel ought to be a spiritual sanctuary for me. It is
not. I hardly ever go to the Kotel anymore.

The purity of my first experience has been ruined - by politics, by power games
and by overt sexism.

There is a 26-second video currently circulating
on Facebook of a Japanese man at the Kotel. He is pictured hugging the Kotel, crying
out. I don’t understand Japanese, but it would be clear to anyone that he is
praying and crying with great feeling. At the end of the video, he falls into a
bowing, prostrating posture.

I don’t know what religion, if any, this Kotel visitor
follows, but I do know that Shinto and Buddhism are the two main religions in
Japan. Chances are pretty excellent that he’s not a Jew. Despite that fact, he
is permitted to worship in his own distinctive way at the Kotel. No one
harasses him. No one arrests him. No one attempts to kick him out of the Kotel
area.

And yet, actual Jewish women who wish to worship in their
own distinctive way at the Kotel, with tallit and tefillin and Torah scrolls,
are routinely harassed and have been arrested.

Men routinely sing, dance, shout and pray out
loud on their side. Bar mitzvah boys are frequently accompanied by small groups
of musicians who drum and sing.

However, when Jewish women gather in a group to pray, they are accused of being
disruptive. They are maligned for compromising the purity of the Kotel. They
are called an array of unspeakable names. They are routinely slandered.

I personally don’t pray with tallit, tefillin and rarely get near a sefer
Torah. But it’s hypocritical, at the
very least, to say that a non-Jewish man can prostrate himself at the Kotel,
praying to his god(s). Visitors of all the world’s religions can pray there to
the gods they worship.

But Jewish women are obligated to behave as if the Kotel is an Orthodox shul?

Either the Kotel is a spiritual home for all of humanity or it’s an Orthodox
shul whose visitors must abide by halacha.

You can’t have it both ways.

Here are a few other ways the Kotel has been ruined for me.

Women, even
elderly women, have no alternative but to stand on plastic chairs in order to
watch a Bar Mitzvah taking place on the men’s side of the mechitza. It’s a
breach of derech eretz to not have found a safer, more dignified solution in
all these years. If men had to stand on plastic chairs to watch a family
simcha, you can bet this situation would have been addressed a long time ago.

It took me awhile to understand why, whenever
we went to the Kotel, my husband reported having no problem getting a space
right at the Wall. Women would be standing three deep, waiting for a space
directly at the Wall. Then I realized that the women’s section is a fraction of
the size of the men’s section. I suspect it’s gotten smaller over time.

Look at the first image, above. You can clearly see the disparity.

I grant that there are times, like Birkat Cohanim, when men
really need more space. So build a moveable mechitza for those times if you
must. But why are women disadvantaged with significantly less access to the
Wall 100% of the time?

Besides having the lion’s share of space, the men’s side
also has tables and umbrellas.

Since I’ve been in Israel, I’ve learned that the Kotel isn’t
anywhere near as important, or as holy, as Har HaBayit (the Temple Mount). So
the Kotel itself, despite its significant reputation, is simply not an important part
of my Jewish life.

9 comments:

The mehitza now has a fold-out platform for the women to stand on. No more plastic chairs. (Yay. -- yes, that cheer is sarcastic.)

The reason why the space at the Kotel is not equalized, according to Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, the government appointee in charge of the Western Wall and the holy sites, is that one does not diminish the holiness of a place (in this case, by taking part of the men's section and making it part of the women's section). He wrote a nine-page responsum on this, by the way. Still, the mehitza is opened during Sukkot and Pesah and a temporary mehitza put in to its left in order to give women more space. (I wonder how he justifies that.)

The men have a great deal of indoor space in an area called Wilson's Arch. The women have a corridor leading to Wilson's Arch for a few hours per week, usually at times that are not convenient.

There is a women's balcony above Wilson's Arch that has one-way glass, curtains, and earphone jacks so that women can listen to bar-mitzvah services taking place below. Men may enter the space unchallenged, but no woman may set foot on the ground level of Wilson's Arch. If she does, she will be threatened with removal from the area.

Who does the threatening? Employees of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, who act like a shadow police force at the Kotel. They wear no identification, but they act as if they rule the place -- because, at present, they do.

There is some more information in an article I wrote a few years ago, at this link: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/.premium-1.574506

Thank you Rivkah! I see this as part of our Tikkun Olam. How might we correct or remedy our quandary? There are many Jewish and non Jewish men who are equally opposed to these policies. There is always a middle path to take...

I feel the same way. I so wish the Kotel could simply have national monument status, like Masada and other places. I can hardly stand going to the Kotel as it has come to symbolize a Judaism that is divisive and cruel. But maybe that's appropriate. It is that division and cruelty that led to its destruction 2,000 years ago as well.

I have no trouble visualizing the Beit HaMikdash however the Kotel experience leaves me cold. I can never concentrate as well as when I am on the bus. I learned to say a passuk from you and it is really special to me. I never want to forget where I am even on my way to the rest of my life in Jerusalem.

I hate having plastic cups shook in my face and I find it just too sensory overloaded to properly pray.So I will go when it works out but I don't have a yearning for this experience.

interesting.. I used to go to the kotel for the experience of the japanese man and somehow have stopped going and did not know why..you have clarified that for me for although i am traditional and do not look for the new experience women would like to celebrate at the kotel i admire them for their wishes , to be a part of the religious ceremonies there. meanwhile i would just like to add something.. i understand from my rav that the kotel is a place of judgement, maybe the fact that the mens section is larger reflects the need for men to be judged rather than women...